I am working on a custom order. The buyer wants me to make a silver with a strip of 14k gold in the middle. The ring should have a silver liner on the inside so it is one piece of silver against the finger that can have an inscription. The ring will then be hammered on the outside.
I made some prototypes with silver and copper and it worked well enough. However, I started to wonder if I was possibly trapping pickle on the inside of the ring.
Here is what I did:
Make two silver rings, one gold ring, 1mm thick. Solder them together with hard solder. Pickle. Make a 0.8mm silver liner, pressure fit it inside of the combined rings, then use soft solder to flow solder between the two layers on top and bottom. Pickle.
When I hammered the ring I noticed some liquid coming out on a tiny gap. So now I am worried I get pickle stuck in there.
Is there a better way to build this ring, or to prevent pickle from getting in, or to get pickle out of the ring again?
Bree I might have made the sleeve first, then slid the bands on and soldered them in position. In truth whichever way is easiest for you. The important thing here is this: don’t use soft solder on the ring at all. Not ever. Use an easy solder, in this case: silver. When you are thru soldering, pickle the ring and then put into a rinse water that has baking soda in it. This will neutralize the pickle and you can start hammering. Hammering is sometimes best done by making impressions in the metal with a small rubber wheel. Also, you might consider cutting a line between the bands with a fine saw blade just to define your ring as 3 separate bands . or not. Have fun. tom
The third and forth way to make this ring. Carve a wax band with a channel carved around the middle. A wax lathe from the Matt wax company does this with ease. Cast in silver, then make a gold band out of square wire with an open seam. Pop it over the silver into the channel and solder the gold seam shut. then solder in place with silver solder. 4th way. Make or buy a flat silver band and cut a channel around the outside with a graver or a lathe and then solder the band made out of square wire in the channel.
Actually no solder needed. I’ve done several. Make the silver band a size
or so too small. Make the hammered gold band the finished size. Slip the
gold band over the silver one. Then put the silver ring with the loose gold
band on a ring stretcher and stretch it up to fit.
The ring stretchers run any where from $16.00 to $600.00 or more.
Here’s an economy model from Rio.
Stretching up the inner liner instead of soldering it would work. I am trying to attach a pic of my copper prototype. The gold ring is flush with the two silver rings top and bottom, so the the silver liner would have to slip inside the silver-gold-silver assembly.
With the prototype I soldered all four rings together, then hammered the ring to texture and to get it to the right size.
So when I use the non-solder stretch fit liner, would it be best to hammer the outside rings first, then pressure fit the inside liner. Also, should I try to roll the liner across the top and bottom of the ring, or cut it off flush on the inside?
